It’ll dictate my next step.
The elevator doors slide open and music slams right into me, amplifying my irritation. I check my phone before shoving it into the pocket of my dress slacks. Fuckingnothing. I storm insideto locate my counterpart and her miserable sidekick—I only manage to spot the latter.
Over half my team is here. Other than a nod, they carry on like I don’t exist. Everyone seems to be over my earlier display of chauvinism. Being the sole reason we had a landslide win against the team we were expected to lose to will predictably do that. Livid at the start, kissing my feet at the end.
Even the coach conveniently forgot that I intentionally socked his offspring in the face.
People shower me with praise as I pass. The most I have the bandwidth to offer in return is a terse thanks. I give it twelve hours before everyone goes back to giving me dirty looks.
I’m aware I playedspectacularly. The best game of my career, in fact. Except the one andonlyperson I want acknowledging my success hasn’t fucking replied. Not so much as an emoji, or one of her shitty cat reaction pictures, or a trending soundbite.
No, she wasrooting for the other fucking team.
The muscle in my jaw ripples. I snatch an unopened drink from the bar and join Mitchell in the corner, so we can skulk side by side, playing a game of who currently hates their existence more.
“Did Jack shove a stick up your ass again?” He chuckles, ending his conversation with a veteran on our team—Cole. Decent enough person. He lifts his chin at me before his well-timed departure.
“It’s near fucking daily.” I shoot Mitchell a scathing glare, growling into my drink. Everyone else might mistake Jack’s persistence for charisma and care about my wellbeing, but Mitchell sees through his childish bullshit. “I will pay you half a million right now toaccidentallytear his hamstring, so I don’t have to spend the rest of the season around him. All the better if the damage is permanent.”
When Jack injured himself in college, he reminded everyone of it every thirty-two minutes. One thing led to another, and he got one of his teeth knocked out the next practice.
Truly a mystery where that puck came from. Really was out of nowhere.
Mitchell shakes his head, and his perfectly styled blond hair doesn’t move a breath. “So he can spend all day watching you from the bench? You’re threatening him with a good time.”
And that might just be worse. “Where’s the demon?” I ask.
I’ve been calling my sister a demon since we were kids. When she was four, I found her making “potions” with the shampoos and soaps, incanting what I could only assume was advanced Latin. When questioned, she shrugged and said that it was on a need-to-know basis. Naturally, six-year-old me assumed the worst.
Mitchell nods toward the pool where Sabrina is doing theMacarenato “Mr. Blindside.” Her dark hair flicks around with her clumsy movements. She’s smiling as per usual, having the time of her life, and making everyone around her fall madly in love with her.
I’ve questioned my mother on several occasions as to whether we are in fact related. She confirmed it, much to my dismay. The running theory is that I absorbed all the negativity from the womb, and Sabrina was left with all the joy that I never dared near.
If I go up to Sabrina now, she’ll try forcing me to dance, and truthfully there are very few things that would be more painful. As if we’re of the same mind, Mitchell and I silently edge closer to her, periodically glaring at anyone who looks at her.
“Any updates I need to know about?” he asks.
I shake my head once. “Sabrina said anything about her?”
“The same.”
Good.
“There’s a family dinner tomorrow.” Mitchell gives me a weighted look.
My jaw tics. “Jack’s going to be there?”
He nods. I chug the rest of my drink. I haven’t spoken to my parents in nearly a decade, and yet, Jack is breaking fucking bread with them every month. Theirgolden boy. The son they always wanted.
“Are you going to be there?”
“Like I’d let him near Sabrina,” he says, offended that I’d suggest otherwise.
Sabrina hates the fucker as well, and she isn’t so welcoming toward him at their dinners anymore. It took her a year to realize she was getting played by him.
I spent thirteen months trying to survive with a sister who hated me, eight months without the person I considered my best friend, and the rest of my life without parents. All because of Jack fucking Norton and his lies.
At least Sabrina and Mitchell will never fall for his shit again.
